I'm currently having an "interesting" time onboarding at a new job. I got to pick the team after being hired, and yet it's the worst experience of my 24-year career in software development.
The manager is the nicest person I've ever worked with. But my "onboarding buddy" is the most obnoxious, difficult person I've ever worked with. At this company, the manager's role is much less technical than what I'm used to, so the manager ends up not making much of a difference in practical terms.
I feel like a complete idiot every day. Whenever I ask anyone on the team a question, I get an answer that only makes sense to someone who's been working there for 5 years. Every time I say "I don't understand, can you please explain what that means," I get another answer that assumes I've been working there for 5 years.
Last week (after 3 months) I reached the point where I knew it was time to pull the plug and switch to a different team.
The company has extremely complicated onboarding tools and timelines, which are filled with over 100 tasks, which are about 99% irrelevant (and non-technical). It's a giant list of things to check off, but it's so overwhelming and complex that it's useless.
This was the onboarding program that we had had and I’m trying to devise a replacement for. Because yeah, it sucked as both an experience and also in terms of effectiveness.
What I’m doing now is a weekly series of recorded hands-on/whiteboard sessions, building up from the 10,000 foot view of the software (the most fundamental user journey) and working piece by piece towards the details. And I’m letting the onboarders steer the agenda - they tell me what they’re ready for next, a few days ahead, and I pull the diagrams/exercises/links/docs ahead and then just kinda wing it.
It’s more effective, and enjoyable, as far as I can tell. It’s probably not paced as ideally as it could be, but as a manager I have likited time to give to something like this. We’re getting to the point where I think some of the veteran engineers could take slices and host the discussion. And the recordings will hopefully act as an accelerator for the next batch of newbies.
I still feel like there’s a lot better a resources and time strapped manager could do.
This is typical for a company where people who hire you are not the same people you end up working with. The team you picked may not have wanted you. They didn't get to choose you and they didn't get to interview you. Consequently, they may not have thought it's their responsibility to onboard you, so they made it a painful experience for you on purpose.
> I feel like a complete idiot every day. Whenever I ask anyone on the team a question, I get an answer that only makes sense to someone who's been working there for 5 years. Every time I say "I don't understand, can you please explain what that means," I get another answer that assumes I've been working there for 5 years.
I've had this experience, especially the part where none of their answers make sense because they include a bunch of jargon specific to the company that I cannot be aware of.
It's rare that you get a technical manager in a large company. It's fine for HR-ish stuff, but if they do anything technical, like enter a Jira ticket, it creates problems. Detail is often lacking. This is one of the reasons I prefer smaller firms.
The manager is the nicest person I've ever worked with. But my "onboarding buddy" is the most obnoxious, difficult person I've ever worked with. At this company, the manager's role is much less technical than what I'm used to, so the manager ends up not making much of a difference in practical terms.
I feel like a complete idiot every day. Whenever I ask anyone on the team a question, I get an answer that only makes sense to someone who's been working there for 5 years. Every time I say "I don't understand, can you please explain what that means," I get another answer that assumes I've been working there for 5 years.
Last week (after 3 months) I reached the point where I knew it was time to pull the plug and switch to a different team.
The company has extremely complicated onboarding tools and timelines, which are filled with over 100 tasks, which are about 99% irrelevant (and non-technical). It's a giant list of things to check off, but it's so overwhelming and complex that it's useless.